environment Politics: Al Gore assholes Bill O'Reilly denialists false equivalency idiots media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 10: Just Stop It. Stop It. Right Now.
Under a snarky and dismissive headline (“Al Gore’s Snow Job”), Lorrie Goldstein of the Toronto Sun talks about Al Gore’s futile attempt to educate Bill “the tide goes in, the tide goes out” O’Reilly and his audience about how global warming is linked to all this f***ing snow. As snarky and dismissive pieces go, it’s not that bad, pointing out that all Gore’s claims are correct and all of O’Reilly’s statements are stupid…but it nevertheless treats the 2000 popular vote winner as a vaguely comic figure. Our media is so, so, so, so damned lazy.
Sent on February 3:
Lorrie Goldstein notes that Al Gore’s name now triggers reflexive skepticism among people who are anxious to dismiss the very real threat of global climate change as somehow chimerical. But her column inadequately addresses the reasons for this. The former vice-president and Nobel laureate has done his homework; his prescience on the issue of global warming is, or should be, a foregone conclusion by now. Instead, many media outlets dismiss his hard-won expertise, either through a simplistic Bill O’Reilly-style confusion of weather and climate, or through the marginally more sophisticated tactic of false equivalency, in which a statement by a genuinely worried climatologist (or a former VP) is “balanced” by pronunciamenti from petroleum industry mouthpieces. Yes, it’s true that the climate debate has become politically polarized — but environmentalists haven’t been doing the politicizing. That responsibility belongs to the Republican party and its sponsors, Big Oil and Big Coal.
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialism idiots scientific consensus Storms
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 9: Auntie Em?
The Kansas City Star takes on the big storms & crazy weather by acknowledging that, as the headline puts it, “Some scientists believe extreme weather events becoming the norm.” The comments on this article are what prompted the closing sentences in my letter (mailed 2/2/11):
The phrase “some scientists” is misleading; it’s just about impossible for the scientific consensus on human causes of global warming to get any stronger. Barring a few petroleum-funded contrarians, the overwhelming majority of climate specialists agree: anthropogenic greenhouse emissions are warming the atmosphere, and the results are going to bring us a world of hurt in the coming decades. The current crop of freak weather events all over the world is just a preview of coming attractions; for decades climatologists have been predicting a worldwide increase in anomalous weather as a consequence of the greenhouse effect. Now their predictions are coming true from Queensland to Kansas as hundreds of millions of lives are disrupted by severe storms, flooding, snow, and drought. But climate-change deniers cannot admit they’ve been misled; their ideologically-driven rejection of global warming’s factuality is not susceptible to actual evidence, no matter how much of it piles up on their doorsteps.
Warren Senders
environment: media irresponsibility snowstorms
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 8: Whiteout!
Written and sent to the Chicago Tribune on February 1, as Chicago is getting ready for its own massive snowstorm. Typically, the article is all about municipal preparations, ignoring the webs of causality that link this weather event with all the other crazy stuff that’s coming out of the sky elsewhere in the world.
As Chicago braces for a “once-in-a-decade” snowfall, it is easy and tempting to think of it as an isolated phenomenon. But this blizzard, like the multiple winter storms that are hammering the East coast, is part and parcel of the same complex set of phenomena that gave us the floods that have inundated Pakistan, the cyclone that’s headed for Australia, and the drought that devastated Russia last summer.
If we wish to build a future for our children and their children in turn, we must face the reality of global climate change. While no single weather event can be blamed on the greenhouse effect (science doesn’t work that way), there is no longer any serious doubt among experts: anthropogenic climate change makes extreme weather overwhelmingly more likely. The fact that the phrase “climate change” does not appear at all in this article is an unfortunate abdication of journalistic responsibility.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots teapartiers
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 7: (facepalm)
Paul LePage, the new governor of Maine, is an asshole of the first order:
“I believe in real, strong environmental laws,” Gov. Paul LePage announced to a room full of environmentally-minded Mainers a little more than a week ago. “I would never challenge a strong environmental law that’s based in science.”
Four days later, LePage launched a broadside against Maine’s environmental protections, targeting for elimination virtually every state environmental law and regulation in existence, regardless of their scientific merit, importance to Maine’s economy and citizen health, or even their bipartisan support.
The changes he proposed to the regulatory reform committee would rezone 3 million acres of wilderness for development, allow toxic chemicals back into children’s toys and baby bottles, lower air and water pollution standards, reduce fines for polluters, eliminate the Board of Environmental Protection and shift the burden for recycling electronic waste away from manufacturers and onto the people of Maine.
Actually that’s probably an insult to assholes everywhere. My letter to the Sentinel:
Paul LePage’s proposed changes in Maine environmental protections are examples of the kind of nihilism that should have no place in politics. The Tea-Party governor apparently feels beholden only to his ideological allies, rather than to the long-term good of the state. Furthermore, the anti-government zealots who voted for him are themselves being manipulated by cynical and destructive big-business forces whose best interests are nowhere aligned with Maine’s. Unfortunately, ruined natural resources cannot be instantly remedied in the next election cycle; LePage is proposing to spend the state’s environmental capital for the benefit of his corporate sponsors rather than steward it wisely. One suspects that some part of the governor’s anti-nature crusade is simply gleeful “hippie-punching” — political maneuvers taken for no other reason than to offend people who actually give a damn about some of the most beautiful places in the country and the world.
Warren Senders
environment: media irresponsibility
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 6: Rule, Britannia!
The Guardian notes that in England, the citizenry continues to be concerned about the climate, to the tune of 83 percent — even in the wake of the various non-scandals that have captivated low-information Americans.
I write to the Guardian often. They write on this subject often, which makes them relatively rare in the world of major media outlets. This letter is just a fairly standard “American media sucks, big-time” screed — not that that diminishes its relevance, of course.
Britons’ comprehension of the dangers posed by runaway climate change is a powerful contrast to the state of affairs in the United States, where a media system heavily influenced by Petrodollars has made a reality-based discussion of climate issues essentially impossible. The irresponsibility of American broadcast and print media is astonishing; given the likelihood of major infrastructural disruptions from worldwide sea-level rise and increased storm activity, it would seem only reasonable for our public figures to treat this threat as a threat, rather than a political football. But at this point, the notion of a responsible American media establishment is oxymoronic; US citizens are offered stenography in lieu of reportage, specious false equivalence instead of hard facts and expert analysis. It’s unsurprising that despite the drastic uptick in storms and extreme weather events, ever fewer Americans accept the actuality of climate change. Why confront an expensive reality when illusions are cheap?
Warren Senders
environment: climate zombies denialism scientific literacy
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 5: Keep ’em Ignorant!
The Attleboro Sun-Chronicle (MA) runs a fairly standard “hey, it’s snowing! Does that mean global warming is bunk?” piece, replete with a quote from an Accuweather denialist at the end.
So-called “climate skeptics” are fond of pointing out extreme snowfalls as somehow “disproving” the whole notion of global warming, thereby demonstrating the dismal state of science education in our country. A warmer atmosphere means that more water evaporates and turns into precipitation, be it rain, snow, hail or any of the peculiar combinations for which Massachusetts is rightly famed. The science of evaporation is hardly controversial — and the science behind the greenhouse effect has been firmly established for many decades. One of the first predictions of climatic instability as a consequence of increased atmospheric CO2 appeared in Popular Mechanics — in 1953! — and climatologists have been refining their analyses ever since. But most “climate skeptics” are unworthy of the term; a skeptic is one who relies on evidence and understanding, while the current crop of naysayers wear their ignorance of basic scientific concepts as a badge of honor.
Warren Senders
Education environment Politics: good advice
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environment Politics: Ban ki-Moon corporatism Philippines
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 4: Actually, ALL Of Us Live On Islands
The Philippines Inquirer runs an article predicting that 2011 is going to have more weather anomalies — a prognostication that falls in the “utterly obvious” category. It’s a much better piece than you’ll find in the American media.
Of course, Filipinos and Filipinas are seeing climate change up close and personal:
Here at home, in Baguio City, millions worth of fruits and vegetables were ruined by heavy frost of an unseasonably cold weather.
More than a week of abnormally heavy rains left 33 dead last December. About 70,000 fled the flash floods and landslides in Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and Albay.
Our people in those areas remain in turmoil—hundreds of hectares of rice lands, private property and infrastructure destroyed; a total of P431 million in newly planted crops and fertilized soil washed away; and contagious diseases and rat hordes added to their immense misery.
So the least I can do is add a voice in sympathy. As is all too often the case, finding the LTE link was an exercise in frustration.
Ban Ki-moon’s plea to the developed nations of the world is heartfelt and sincere. The unpredictable weather countless nations have experienced over the past year is only the beginning; the orchestra of chaos is only tuning up, and in the decades to come we are going to witness extreme weather events that are certain to shatter record after record. Unfortunately, the political system in the USA has been captured by (to use Theodore Roosevelt’s trenchant phrase) “malefactors of great wealth.” Operatives of the world’s biggest corporations wield almost unchecked power in the halls of American governance, and the notion of a national climate policy based on scientific fact now seems hopelessly unrealistic. The U.N. Secretary General is apparently now refocusing his attention and energy on an economic rationale for changes in the world’s energy economy. Let us hope that “profit” is a more effective motivator than “planet.”
Warren Senders
environment: assholes denialism idiots scientific literacy
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 3: Who Needs Experts When We Can Just Look Out The Window?
The Vancouver Times-Colonist points out that winter storms don’t disprove climate change. Since the headline (“Winter storms don’t undermine global warming science, climate experts say”) includes the phrase “experts say,” I am confidently expecting a barrage of “why would we trust them damn experts” comments, but I may be disappointed. Actually I couldn’t see any comments at all; perhaps the Times-Colonist doesn’t allow them? Anyway, rather than mock the deniers, I’m trying to be diagnostic.
Those who deny the existence of global climate change are caught in several all-too-human problems. One is the question of timescale; climatic shifts, while accelerating rapidly due to the greenhouse effect, are still too slow for most people to perceive (and by the time they’re happening fast enough for us to notice, it’ll be too late to do anything about it). Then there’s our inability to grasp the statistics of probability (since global warming doesn’t cause any single storm, flood, drought or weather event, but makes such events more likely everywhere). This innumeracy is part and parcel of the larger crisis of scientific ignorance; how can we understand all the crazy weather we’re having unless we know enough chemistry and physics to figure out how evaporation works? And finally, of course, is the sad fact that we in the developed world consider abandoning our conveniences a fate worse than death.
Warren Senders
environment: Ban ki-Moon United Nations unpredictable weather events
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Year 2, Month 2, Day 2: The Future Is Here Already
The Khaleej Times is a news organization based in the UAE. They ran a version of the AP story on Ban Ki-moon’s changed approach; the same day their headline noted a “sudden storm” that “played havoc” in the northern part of the country. A nice connection that worked pretty well in this letter.
It is a sad irony: on the day that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is reported to be “shifting focus” in the fight against climate change, the lead story in the Khaleej Times is headed, “Sudden storm plays havoc in the Northern Emirates.” A post-global-warming atmosphere will feature quite a few such sudden and extreme weather events, which can confidently be expected to wreak havoc wherever they show up. “Once-in-a-century” floods will come every decade; weather patterns that have been consistent and dependable for countless generations are going to go steadily more awry. As weather predictions become ever more unreliable, the only things to remain certain will be agricultural disruption and infrastructural destruction. It is to be hoped that Ban Ki-moon’s focus on sustainable economic development will provide effective motivations for the world’s biggest greenhouse emitters to change their ways, since “saving the world” didn’t seem to do the trick.
Warren Senders